Bills Posts

I caused a stir in the household last night. I had to buy a new tyre for my bike, and bought a new tube also (luckily, as it happens) i had fitted everything and pumped the tube up, at about 60Psi, I realised that the tyre hadn’t seated correctly, and was off the wheel rim. I touched the valve to deflate the tube, and it went bang, quite loudly. My ears rang for about 5 minutes. Of course, everybody came out to ask “what was that’? No harm done, and the second tube came in to play. All seems ok, this mornings ride will be the test. As it happens, the bike is in for its first (free) servicing on Saturday, so they can check it out.

My first morning walk for 5 days, the difference in the sky is striking. The last two photos show the sky on Thursday morning, and the sky this morning. As time moves on so things change, of what that means is I am on the verge of loosing the morning chorus, which when it is in full throat is lovely. There is a big flock of starlings that roosts under the Portsmouth Harbour railway station. I think they start murmuring at about 4pm. I’ll have to see if I can’t get down there for that on the weekend.

Although the temp was 7-8C, the breeze gusting to 6 knots had a real chill to it, so I appreciated being wrapped up. Rain was threatening, but it looks like I’ll be ok for the ride to work.

Seriously, who likes getting up from a nice warm bed into a cold room at a ridiculous hour? On the other hand, I do enjoy the walk, and I particularly enjoy a walk on a frosty morning, which is exactly what is promised by the tv meteorologists. Should be interesting.

Getting a puncture on Thursday evening was annoying. It wasn’t as if I had ridden over some glass or a nail. The wind had blown my bike off the stand. The bike falling over had caused the tube to puncture, it was only a pin prick of a hole, but in the past I’ve never had much success in repairing them, so it’s easier to just buy a new tube. I did so, not thinking the tyre was damaged.

It was.

So, I ended up having to buy a tyre as well today. Then I must have mounted the tyre incorrectly, as it came out of the wheel. I touched the tube as it blew at 60psi. My ears rang for 5 minutes.

An interesting weekend, early rising for me on both days over the weekend.

Working with RAYNET on the Hampshire Dog Sled Racing event it was, I think, about as deep into the New Forest as you can get. It was fun watching the dogs.

There were all types of characters; the really gung-ho types that were lolloping along, pulling their humans on anything from a three-wheeled sled, two wheeled scooters,mountain bikes or just on foot, through to dogs that were just out for a daily saunter regardless of how much people shouted at them on to dogs that clearly though their people were mad for dragging them out.

The weather was fine, it rained a little bit, really not much – ok for the runners. Luckily, the way the course was set out, the RAYNET people were able to sit in their cars at the various check points, so we were quite comfortable.

It was though a little bit (not much) muddy. Which meant that as soon as I got back I had to go and get the car cleaned.

At least, I think I am. That doesn’t mean I start with ideas that are good. I think if something, want to do it, apply a limited amount of planning, start it and then, usually, it requires too much effort and so I have to let it drop, or it is never as quick, or as good as it should be.

So what have I started that I am in danger of not finishing, and what would I like to start?

Well, As a radio ham, I like to make contributions to the clubs journal. I thought it would be a good idea to get on to the submarine Alliance at the submarine museum, and write articles about aspects of it. I’ve been in touch with submariners, and will follow it through, but it is taking a lot longer that it really should – has it become a bit of a chore?

What then, would I like to start? I have a DJI Osmo gimbal stabiliser for mobile phones. IK’d quite like to do some Jack Hargreaves, Out Of Town type YouTube clips. How does that sound. Will I start it? Probably. Will I finish it? Who knows. Let’s see shall we?

The difficulty I have is writing twice a day. I start the day usually by going for a walk, which I then write briefly about on my Facebook page that only family and friends can see. When it comes to the evening blog my brain has pretty much dried up. That’s why, if you have access to my Facebook page and you are reading this blog, you will see some duplication. I have to admit I’m not overly worried about that. To me it’s more important that this blog is used rather than not.

I still don’t have a message. How many of you remember the 1960s tv show out of town, with Jack Hargreaves? I even have the music going through my brain now. I think I’d like to be a bit like him. Or Magnus. pike. Remember him? I like waving my arms around but that would frighten the animals away, so the two don’t really mix.

The skies were deceptive this morning. I thought they were the cirrocumulus type and that the sunrise would be interesting, so I was approaching my walk with enthusiasm. Just to side track; yes there are the occasional days when I think to myself I’d much rather stay in bed than go for my walk, but that doesn’t happen often. I usually see my weekends as my reward for walking through the week. When I got out this morning, I realised they weren’t cirrocumulus, they were stratus clouds. Oh My, why have I suddenly gone all technical on the clouds? I thought I might as well learn them, seeing as I have been a member of the cloud appreciation society for quite a few years now. I’ll try to mention them every day now (I can hear the groans). Anyhow, I did get caught briefly in the rain, not much only a few seconds so it wasn’t really that bad.

It is still quite gusty. I was getting speeds of 10 Knots whilst down at the waterfront, and it’s sheltered there. I got to the water just in time to catch the Mon St Michelle as she came past the spinnaker, that’s always a nice sight. The weather was ok really, 10C with pressure a bit low at 1019. When the wind is like that I do worry about my hat (flat cap) being blown off into the water so I keep it tight down.

Is it really this long since I last wrote? Not very consistent for a blog that I would like to become famous (I’m joking – am I?). Why did I stop writing. Unfortunately I kind of lost the plot really. As I have said previously, I have a desire to write, but I have no message. Nothing profound to say on politics or anything else . My writings are bland and routine. I give an example sample from my facebook page below;

Cool at around 6C, with a slight breeze of only a knot or two, but enough to add a bit of chill, so I appreciated my hat gloves and coat. There was a lot of high level cloud about, it hadn’t rained though. There was a break in the cloud to the east, so at least there is a little bit of drama in the sky.

Quite a busy #Breakfastclub in the sense of talking, the usual members at the table. Topics of discussion today included smart motorways (mostly not being very smart) and autonomous and electric vehicles. Very interesting. Nice to get home to a cup of tea though.

I wonder if it is worth maintaining the blog? I shall continue to post the extract from my blog here, either until I find a message or I decide to give up. I’m not quite there yet.

Not long after I learned to read, I realised that my sister had quite a good bookcase . I later ruined that bookcase by painting it, but that’s another story. This post is about a particular book that I found. It didn’t have a cover, it was just a green hardback.

I can’t remember the title, I can’t remember the author.

I can remember parts of the plot. The thing about it is it was the first science fiction I ever read.

I’ve been trying to find the book ever since.

It is a time when faster than light travel is in its infancy. FTL ships are being built and tested and lost. A young lad, I think he is being trained as a chemist realises that a relativistic effect of FTL is fantastically rapid ageing. In the book it gives the SOL as aa figure, 186,282.42 miles per second.

That is about it as far as the plot is concerned.

If anyone ever reading this blog knows which book it is that I’m talking about, I would be incredibly grateful, as I would love to have a copy, and once I find out what it is, hopefully, I will be able to get it.

In the meantime, here are some random pictures.

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I can’t remember when or how I first discovered Star Trek. I think I might have read about it. or seen something on a friends TV. I know that it was first broadcast at a time when we didn’t have a TV. So every (I think wednesday, just for that hour, I would go to a friends house to watch it – they were a friend of my mums, not mine – they must have thought I was mad watching this rubbish – their thoughts I assume, definitely not mine. For I was captivated.

Here was a universe that I definitely wanted to be part of. I loved the Enterprise, I though Kirk was an excellent captain and Spock was my hero. I think I was probably going through a difficult time then and I imagined modelling myself on spock, and suppressing my emotions. I thought the stories were fantastic, I thought Uhura was stunning, everything about it was just brilliant.

I still the original series DVDs and pick up the occasional episode on TV. I thought the next generation was an . absolutely logical step, and what a wonderful Picard Patrick Stewart was, along with the rest of the crew.

Although I like a lot of the Voyager episodes, the series didn’t grab me in quite the same way as TOS or TNG. I think DS9 was in a similar vein really. Although I did watch most of the episodes of both series. I’m just really pleased that the franchise has lasted. Some of the films were rubbish, to be frank especially Star Trek 5, the final frontier which was in my opinion tripe. One of the best and most enjoyable, was the voyage home, which I still occasionally watch. Of course I suspect people will disagree with me.

More about TV shows I have liked later. In the meantime, here are some random pictures – not taken recently.;

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Perhaps I should have entitled this entry as “Names”. Do you find that some names stick in your mind? They do with me. For the life of me, I cannot remember when I first heard the name The Venerable Bede. I had no idea who it was.

I think I found out a while ago that he was a monk, and that he was famous. I didn’t know what he was famous for. I was surprised today to find somebody who’d never heard of The Venerable Bede. I don’t know why I should be surprised at that. I don’t think I’ve ever discussed Bede with anybody. I don’t know why I should think that everybody would know about a 6th century Monk.

I can’t now remember what triggered me to dig a bit deeper in to him. Something did though. Anyhow, I found out that he lived in the 6th century, or thereabouts and he wrote “The Ecclesiastical history of the English People” I looked him up on amazon and acquired a book for a few pence. The book is about him, not the history, but I’ve just found an audible version, 13 hours of listening. I’m not yet sure if I want to commit one of my credits to it.

Apparently, Bede was prodigious in his output. Not only the history, poems, prose, educational material and other religious texts. In that age, when the only method was by hand how did they manage to be so productive? Perhaps I might get an indication as I read the book. I’m not far into it. I can’t help thinking; what would he have been like if he’d had a computer and a printer?

Fascinating stuff.

Here are some random pictures;

Thursdays is Isle Of Wight Radio Society Thursday Night Net Night.

On a Thursday, I like to run the net starting at 2000 and running through to 2100. Some nights there is a topic other nights are “Natter Nights” . Even though, with a topic, callers on the net can raise any issue they wish, having a topic merely provides a focus, if people can’t think of any other issue to raise. Usually, when a TNN is run with a topic it is not only entertaining, but it is educational as well. It’s rare that I don’t learn something.

Tonights topic was wireless scanners. There are two ways of conducting scanning; frequency and channel. Depending upon the capability of the scanner channel scanning is best, these are known set frequencies, that may be allocated a name or a number, for example, Southampton Vessel Traffic Services, commonly Southampton VTS manages ship movements into and out of Southampton and through the Solent, it operates on Marine Channel 12, or 156.600 MHz, scanners can be programmed so that you now the name of the primary channel user, they will then cycle through all the channels, stopping whenever a signal is detected. Scanners have a serious purpose, but they are also fun.

What I found out tonight was that my Uniden scanner only really deals with higher frequencies, there are frequencies used by ships and aircraft, if satellite isn’t available. I’d never even thought about HF. Once again, a very pleasant hour passed.

Here are some random pictures;

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Are you a starter or a finisher? I tend to think of myself as a starter, but I’m not really sure. My problem is I like to be involved. To give you an example; After becoming licensed as a Radio Ham, I was very keen to become a member of RAYNET. I’ve been a member for three years now. During my first year, in my journal (not a diary because I only wrote when I felt like it) just after I joined RAYNET, I wrote in large red letters, underscored with a border around it DO NOT JOIN THE COMMITTEE. By the end of the year I was secretary of our group. I do this with everything. I have a project that I’ve started, already I’m not sure if it is a good idea, but it is growing legs, and I have half a dozen people involved. it involves a number of articles for the journal for our radio club (i’m on the committee for that as well), I’m also a Neighbourhood Watch coordinator, and am the Gosport NHW Twitter account holder.

Every so often something gets too much for me and I have to get rid of it. I know that what I am doing at the moment is manageable, so that isn’t a danger. But I did join an organisation as I wanted to volunteer in the local community. I knew fairly quickly that I had made a mistake, and that the role involved too much (in my view) responsibility – for me at least. So I had to let the chairman and the organisation down. I was becoming stressed over it, and that was as a volunteer – not a good position to be in.

This mornings walk was the first one in four days. I don’t normally go out early at the weekends, and I had a work commitment on Monday, and overslept on Tuesday. It wasn’t as cold as it was yesterday morning, but it was blustery, so I really appreciated my hat, coat and gloves. The frustrating thing is that with dawn now receding from my reach, I can still see the beginnings of the morning sky, and this one looked as though it would be quite spectacular. And I had to walk away! Oh well. There’ll be another one.

Here are some random pictures for you.

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